Serious The Atheism/Agnosticism thread

I suppose I have a question- why exactly are people atheists as opposed to agnostics? From what I can tell, the basis for most atheists being atheists is logical/scientific- i.e., "there is no proof of God therefore I do not believe in him." However, isn't it true that there might be the tiniest chance that God does, in fact, exist? Scientific facts are not in truth facts, but rather a statement that "we're 99% sure this is the way it is." Doesn't this mean that a modified version of Pascal's Wager effectively states agnosticism is superior to atheism, since we can never be 100% sure God doesn't exist? Sorry if I phrased anything offensively, I didn't mean to; I was just curious.
I personally believe it's a matter of belief and faith. In other words, just the same as it exists for every other denomination of faith. Just as there is no concrete evidence to support the existence of one or more deities, neither is there evidence to refute the existence of one. And so, atheism refutes the existence of deities while religion supports the existence of higher beings.

The entire notion of atheism, as far as I'm concerned, is that individuals cannot believe in something or force themselves to believe in something that simply does not make sense to them. Atheism is rooted in the logic of the world as we currently understand it, although that doesn't really say much.
 

Hipmonlee

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I tend to argue that the difference between atheists and agnostics is mostly semantic. Different people with the same beliefs preferring to describe themselves differently. Personally I call myself an atheist, I admit that god might exist, but that seems less likely to me than Santa Claus and the Loch Ness monster being real.
 

cookie

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atheism and agnosticism are mutually compatible, they only appear exclusive when approached from the standpoint of someone who believes in god
Atheists "don't believe in god", but if you presented them evidence they probably would (much like an agnostic would). But the whole reason why someone is agnostic/atheist is because they adopt an evidence-based worldview, and the only difference is that agnostics are pedantic about stating that they don't know. Atheists for all intents and purposes "don't know" either, because their worldview is evidence-based. They just come down on the side of the fence that is the most likely. So an atheist is really just an agnostic that makes an empirical approximation to the world w.r.t god existing.
 
I like the way Ricky Gervais states that Agnosticism is boring because, by definition - if you define what 'knowing' is - nobody knows for sure if there is or isn't a God. Therefore, we are all agnostic, by definition, so it's a boring label, and one that is only applicable if the question is 'Is there a God'.

okay, he says, nobody knows whether or not there is a God, so now what do you believe? If the question is "Do you believe there is a God", then the answer "I don't know" doesn't work, because one way or another, you either believe or you don't. I don't know whether there is or isn't a God, but based on everything I believe and have experienced in this world, I believe there isn't.
 
I like the way Ricky Gervais states that Agnosticism is boring because, by definition - if you define what 'knowing' is - nobody knows for sure if there is or isn't a God. Therefore, we are all agnostic, by definition, so it's a boring label, and one that is only applicable if the question is 'Is there a God'.

okay, he says, nobody knows whether or not there is a God, so now what do you believe? If the question is "Do you believe there is a God", then the answer "I don't know" doesn't work, because one way or another, you either believe or you don't. I don't know whether there is or isn't a God, but based on everything I believe and have experienced in this world, I believe there isn't.
I'm so bored today thought I might as well revive this thread.

I like Ricky Gervais, but I've got to disagree with him on this one. Its one thing to talk about the existence of gods in general, and its another thing to talk about a particular God existing or not. In the first case I would agree that we are agnostics because how could we ever know? Perhaps my socks are a form of quiescent deity that are indistinguishable from ordinary socks; I would never know. Now if we talk about a God of the more common faiths, then I would say that atheism can be built from definite knowledge.

There's a valid argument form called Modus Tollens that says if premise A leads to premise B, and if premise B doesn't occur then premise A didn't occur either. For example if God exists as described in the bible (premise A) then according to the bible we are a result of creation (premise B). But if biology shows no indication of creation (or better yet, supports the opposite of creation) then premise A is negated too. I would argue that it is completely rational to dismiss belief in this God because it lost credibility.

Now you could say that maybe the text made a mistake, but God still exists. That's a fair argument, but I think faith comes in a packaged deal. Nobody just believes in "God", they believe in "God the savior", "God the creator", etc. Now if every miracle of this God has been demonstrated to be false then we are back to God being my sock. Would you worship my sock for no apparent reason? I think the answer to that question determines if you do or don't know that my sock isn't God.
 
I personally can't say about myself whether I'm an atheist, an agnostic or what my personal belief makes me to be.
I think the basic stone of this whole matter is our perception of God. What or who is God? I will talk only about Christians (though there are many and many people of another religions, but it's impossible to cover all in one post..) So Christians see the God as a human, which also behaves as human, and only difference between us is that He is omnipotent, omnipresent; in other words, a perfect being.
I made myself a conclusion that people in past times might used this concept of God(s) because they needed a 'tool' to show an ideal concept of human being and perfect society which these beings would built. In other words, God is "only" model, 'holy' texts are "manual" and the rest is on Art (which may be our soul) and on Artist (we).
Personally I think this is the way on which should this type of religion be viewed from.
Last though; I met people who were calling themselves atheists. When I asked them why they are atheists, they answered with classic line "I will not believe in some fictional figure." As I said above, I believe that in faith, the god isn't neccesarily the centre. The centre is you- and what will serve you as a 'model' for your soul. And all these physically uncatchable things which you feel in the process of 'modeling' your soul which give moves your life forward, I thing in wider look we may call them God(s).
But, as agnosticks says, we can't know. (I kinda like those guys..)

Oh yea, I can't forget to add some lines:
1) If you didn't get my thoughs, don't worry. I'm not a native speaker, though I do my best.
2) It's always better to have own ideas and beliefs, than like a dumb sheep eat what others give you.
3) soul=which makes our personality-emotions, thoughs, beliefes... things that are (probably) not influenced by C&H's which we are made from..
4)this post is not meant as an offence.
 
You're turning God into a metaphor of human behavior like "a model" as you put it, which is fine when talking about things like personal growth. But what about the physical accounts of God such as creation? There's no metaphor there: God gave life, set forth the universe and what not. I think most people (including me) are interested in debating the truth in those statements. Scientists believe that life most likely started out as nothing more than a self catalyzing piece of RNA (a small molecule) which eventually became what we are today. Clearly that's very different than intelligent design by a creator.

I'm not sure what physically uncatchable means, but a lot of people are under the impression that things like emotions and thoughts are these abstract qualities that can't be measured by scientific means. Also what makes you think that souls exist? I mean have any of you completed a masters or doctorate degree and have researched the human brain to conclude such statements? I highly doubt it, yet so many people act like a soul is a part of the human anatomy.

Or how about heaven and hell? I think one of the major reasons for practicing a religion/faith is the promise of eternal paradise after death. People think that the non-physical part of them will travel to some place to revisit all of their loved ones with memories and personalities in tact. But let's look at Alzheimer's disease, its a disease where a part of the brain starts to deteriorate or not function properly and leads to memory loss. Or even more simply take a look at physical injury that leads to concussions/memory loss. In both cases a physical cause leads to memory loss, so what makes people think that when their brains are rotting in the ground that their memory will be in tact when they go to heaven? Is there a basis for that?

Lets take this a step further. So the case is when you die you go to heaven. But what is death anyway? I'm sure that you guys are aware that the human body is a multicellular organism that is made up of trillions of cells that are individually living. And we know that natural death occurs when a organ stops functioning which means your cells don't get the nutrients like food, oxygen, etc. that they need. Now lets say that I'm a magic biochemist and I can apart your body with means of constantly providing the nutrients the cells need to grow. Now I take each cell and place it in a Petri dish so that each of the trillion cells is isolated from one another yet living. Are you still alive or dead? Because technically each component of your body is living they're just separated. Is it the connection and cooperation that makes you living as a human? We know that cells communicate by electrical/chemical impulses so is it that? Or is it the collection of blood and bone and other non-living tissue that was a part of you?

So what part of you goes to heaven? How do you know it exists?
 
You're turning God into a metaphor of human behavior like "a model" as you put it, which is fine when talking about things like personal growth. But what about the physical accounts of God such as creation? There's no metaphor there: God gave life, set forth the universe and what not. I think most people (including me) are interested in debating the truth in those statements.
Personally I'm not very interested in these type of debates, whether God created land, sky, animals, plants, etc. That's the only thing I can't accept in any religion. (note that I don't believe in "God" as the person which is described in holy texts.)

Scientists believe that life most likely started out as nothing more than a self catalyzing piece of RNA (a small molecule) which eventually became what we are today. Clearly that's very different than intelligent design by a creator.
I'm also for this theory, as this one sounds the most probable of all I ever heard and read. But it's still pretty hard to believe that in the beginning, there were just random atoms included in some liquid, and with the right catalyst, began the synthesis of basic cell structures, and after a very long period of mutations and adaptations, here we are, very complex beings, made mainly from Carbon and Hydrogen. And if we realize this fact, that our body is literally a huge dose full of all kinds of chemical substances which interacts to each other in complex ways, we may hit a question how these body processes make us feel emotions, remember informations and work with them=think, and believe. This area is still land of lions, terra incognita. These are the 'physically uncatchable' things, which cannot be measured, and which I personally dare to call them human soul, as they are the things which make our personality, make every single being special. What makes me believe that soul exist? Well, simple though, that what our senses are able to recognize, that exists, independently on it's 'real' facts. And that statement might be valid for both physical and abstract things. For example, when we talk: I'm making sound waves within my throat, so it has physical basics. But what we hear, the content=words are abstract, but we know it exists just because we recognize them with our senses. And I think the same aply for body and soul. Body with it's receptors collects signals and informations and sends them to the brain, where they are utilized, sorted and saved. This whole proccess is physical, it's chemistry.
It pretty resemble computers, doesn't it? But unlike machines, we can work with the received informations, evolve thoughs, feel, and all the other 'human things'. This is the undescriptible abstract essence which is not part of out anatomy, but which tightly cooperates with our brain and which makes everyone of us special, in my words, the soul.

And I thing this also gives my opinion about things like heaven and hell, afterlife, etc. In my opinion, there are no such things. The soul, the consciousness will disappear along with the body. But we cannot know. Anyway, I would rather prefer my theory with my existence just vanishing, than being forever a tiny cloud of conserved thoughts, memories, etc., -this vision actually frightens me >.< *shudders*.

Now lets say that I'm a magic biochemist and I can apart your body with means of constantly providing the nutrients the cells need to grow. Now I take each cell and place it in a Petri dish so that each of the trillion cells is isolated from one another yet living. Are you still alive or dead? Because technically each component of your body is living they're just separated. Is it the connection and cooperation that makes you living as a human? We know that cells communicate by electrical/chemical impulses so is it that? Or is it the collection of blood and bone and other non-living tissue that was a part of you?
That actually remember me a cat in the box, you don't know whether it's dead or alive, so you have to consider it's both of it.
Technically your body is alive, but since the parts cannot communicate and whole complex structure is broken, the information transmittions cannot run, nor their proccessing, sorting, etc., so your conciousness will be dead.
 

aVocado

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Did not read the previous posts but I need to correct this:

Scientists believe that life most likely started out as nothing more than a self catalyzing piece of RNA (a small molecule) which eventually became what we are today. Clearly that's very different than intelligent design by a creator.
It actually started out when the first organic molecules spontaneously appeared. They then formed amino acids, RNA did not come first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment
 
Did not read the previous posts but I need to correct this:


It actually started out when the first organic molecules spontaneously appeared. They then formed amino acids, RNA did not come first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller–Urey_experiment
RNA is an organic molecule and its not an amino acid so I don't understand what your point is?
I already know what the Miller-Urey experiment is, but I read it to find a snippet for you. RNA is made of a phosphate base, a sugar, and a nitrogenous base. How did you know that RNA could not have come before amino acids?

"This experiment inspired many others. In 1961, Joan Oró found that the nucleotide base adenine could be made from hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and ammonia in a water solution. His experiment produced a large amount of adenine, the molecules of which were formed from 5 molecules of HCN.[16] Also, many amino acids are formed from HCN and ammonia under these conditions.[17] Experiments conducted later showed that the other RNA and DNA nucleobases could be obtained through simulated prebiotic chemistry with a reducing atmosphere.
 

aVocado

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RNA is an organic molecule and its not an amino acid so I don't understand what your point is?
I know what the Miller-Urey experiment is, but I read it to find a snippet for you. RNA is made of a phosphate base, a sugar, and a nitrogenous base. How did you know that RNA could not have come before amino acids?

"This experiment inspired many others. In 1961, Joan Oró found that the nucleotide base adenine could be made from hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and ammonia in a water solution. His experiment produced a large amount of adenine, the molecules of which were formed from 5 molecules of HCN.[16] Also, many amino acids are formed from HCN and ammonia under these conditions.[17] Experiments conducted later showed that the other RNA and DNA nucleobases could be obtained through simulated prebiotic chemistry with a reducing atmosphere.
hmm, I studied the Miller-Urey experiment lightly and was taught about the experiment that shows amino acids were formed first, so I was always under the impression that that was the case. I quickly looked it up and it seems like a chicken or egg situation where they're not sure if amino acids/proteins or RNA came first but the latter explanation is preferred.
 

Myzozoa

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Scientists believe ...
No, they don't. As briefly as possible: the reason why they do not is because science seeks to explain/describe what will happen in conditions in which divine/supernatural intervention is absent. Hence, miracles do not 'contradict' scientific knowledge and vice versa. This is a misconception that is harmful to the spread of scientific knowledge as it places scientific knowledge in opposition to faith.

http://people.ucsc.edu/~otte/articles/otte.mackie.pdf
 
No, they don't. As briefly as possible: the reason why they do not is because science seeks to explain/describe what will happen in conditions in which divine/supernatural intervention is absent. Hence, miracles do not 'contradict' scientific knowledge and vice versa. This is a misconception that is harmful to the spread of scientific knowledge as it places scientific knowledge in opposition to faith.

http://people.ucsc.edu/~otte/articles/otte.mackie.pdf
What are you talking about? Miracle do contradict scientific knowledge when physical laws have been well establish and supported that its essentially impossible for said miracle to occur. Supernatural or not. Many scientists believe in the RNA world which is not even remotely similar to the creation of the human species as depicted in the bible.

Nothing I said was false: "Many theories of the origin of life rely on RNA self-replication, but researchers have struggled to make RNA 'enzymes' that can stitch together other RNAs of a similar…" taken from an article in Nature.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v502/n7472/full/502412d.html

"

The RNA World and the Origins of Life
To fully understand the processes occurring in present-day living cells, we need to consider how they arose in evolution. The most fundamental of all such problems is the expression of hereditary information, which today requires extraordinarily complex machinery and proceeds from DNA to protein through an RNA intermediate. How did this machinery arise? One view is that an RNA world existed on Earth before modern cells arose (Figure 6-91). According to this hypothesis, RNA stored both genetic information and catalyzed the chemical reactions in primitive cells. Only later in evolutionary time did DNA take over as the genetic material and proteins become the major catalyst and structural component of cells. If this idea is correct, then the transition out of the RNA world was never complete; as we have seen in this chapter, RNA still catalyzes several fundamental reactions in modern-day cells, which can be viewed as molecular fossils of an earlier world.


Figure 6-91
Time line for the universe, suggesting the early existence of an RNA world of living systems.

In this section we outline some of the arguments in support of the RNA world hypothesis.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26876/

Please.
 
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Myzozoa

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Did you read the thing I linked or are you just gonna continue on arguing as though you do not understanding logic or the philosophy of silence, just like a religious person does (from your perspective)? Your first sentence is literally the object of the critique I linked. Miracles by definition are seemingly impossible. And lol, my argument has nothing to do with RNA so please stop talking past me, condescendingly, as though you are saying anything relevant, when you are in fact just repeating yourself and referencing some entirely unrelated thing about RNA (like you need to convince me, as if I believe in miracles or something).

PS , most Western science was and continues to be done by religious people, how do you think that happens? lulz.
 
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Did you read the thing I linked or are you just gonna continue on arguing as though you do not understanding logic or the philosophy of silence, just like a religious person does (from your perspective)? Your first sentence is literally the object of the critique I linked. Miracles by definition are seemingly impossible. And lol, my argument has nothing to do with RNA so please stop talking past me, condescendingly, as though you are saying anything relevant, when you are in fact just repeating yourself and referencing some entirely unrelated thing about RNA (like you need to convince me, as if I believe in miracles or something).

PS , most Western science was and continues to be done by religious people, how do you think that happens? lulz.
You quoted me saying "scientists believe" and your first sentence said "No they don't" hence my first sentence. Then I linked quotes that show they do indeed believe that RNA is the origin of life. If you're not going to properly quote me so I have a context as to what exactly you are replying to, then I will not be making any assumptions for you.

No I didn't read your link because I doubt it has any new information on RNA that I don't already know about. I get my honours bachelor's degree in biochemistry by next year and I have had plenty of discussions with my professors, lab coordinators, and co-op employers that I couldn't care less how much you think I know about the philosophy of science. I'm not here to discuss metaphysical topics only the science.

By definition you say? http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/miracle
1.
an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.

2. such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God.

Double check your definition.

Oh and one last thing. Science is a broad word. Whether an ecologist believes in creation has no profound impact in their profession, nor does it matter for a microbiologist, or a chemist, etc. But you can't study evolutionary biology if you accept creation, you can't be a physicist studying the origin of the universe if you believe in creation. So the statement "many scientists are religious" has no impact on me as a scientist.

If you ask a cosmologist if they think the universe was the spawn of a deity, they will most likely refute that, but if you ask them if we are related to primates they will likely refute that as well. Ask a biochemist if we share the same origin as E.coli and they will most likely agree, ask them if the universe comes from an eternal singularity and not God they might refute that. Everybody just caters to their knowledge with whatever they have decided to study/believe in.
 
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Jorgen

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What does RNA have to do with anything

Also condescendingly linking the dictionary? How many more stereotypically comical missings of the point are we going to have out of this forum poster?
 
hmm, I studied the Miller-Urey experiment lightly and was taught about the experiment that shows amino acids were formed first, so I was always under the impression that that was the case. I quickly looked it up and it seems like a chicken or egg situation where they're not sure if amino acids/proteins or RNA came first but the latter explanation is preferred.

Personally I'm not very interested in these type of debates, whether God created land, sky, animals, plants, etc. That's the only thing I can't accept in any religion. (note that I don't believe in "God" as the person which is described in holy texts.)
I don't think these two found my post condescending probably because unlike Myzozoa they actually read and comprehended what I was saying.

What does RNA have to do with anything
It has to do with something because I brought it up. How about you read my first post? Here I'll even quote it for you


"Scientists believe that life most likely started out as nothing more than a self catalyzing piece of RNA (a small molecule) which eventually became what we are today. Clearly that's very different than intelligent design by a creator."

I'm simply interested in how Christians reconcile with the creation of humans where the bible mentions things like woman being created from the ribs of man. When scientists know that we all originate from single celled organisms and [believe] ultimately from a self-replicating molecule. I was interested in discussing how this affects the faith in an all-knowing infallible god when a truth attributed to god may be deconstructed. These two ideas (multicellular and single cellular origins) are so fundamentally different that what science thinks of the supernatural or how scientists study the supernatural has nothing to do with my post.

So its hard not to be condescending in reply to people like you and Myzozoa who miss my point and have the nerve to say that I'm being irrelevant and missing the point. But please go on. I'm not here to ruin your party.
 
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Jorgen

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You put forward as your thesis that the notion of intelligent design is fundamentally at odds with empirical evidence, but you seem to fixate on unimportant esoteric details such as the specific prevailing hypothesis of abiogenesis and the dictionary entry for "miracle". You seem more snarky and emotionally invested than you really have reason to be, all things considered. I just don't get the sense that you're making a cogent point rather than simply being blustery, so my immediate reaction is to be dismissive.

FYI, most reasonable Christians (i.e., those worth actually discussing anything with) will argue that Genesis is not a literal origin story. For starters, there's two conflicting accounts of creation in Genesis. You don't need to start talking about the unrelated RNA world hypothesis to beat an internally inconsistent idea into the ground.
 
You put forward as your thesis that the notion of intelligent design is fundamentally at odds with empirical evidence, but you seem to fixate on unimportant esoteric details such as the specific prevailing hypothesis of abiogenesis and the dictionary entry for "miracle". You seem more snarky and emotionally invested than you really have reason to be, all things considered. I just don't get the sense that you're making a cogent point rather than simply being blustery, so my immediate reaction is to be dismissive.

FYI, most reasonable Christians (i.e., those worth actually discussing anything with) will argue that Genesis is not a literal origin story. For starters, there's two conflicting accounts of creation in Genesis. You don't need to start talking about the unrelated RNA world hypothesis to beat an internally inconsistent idea into the ground.
I mentioned the word miracle once. At the end of my post. In passing. In a post that Myzozoa didn't even quote. Myzozoa says it means impossible, and I show that it means attributed to God. -> says I fixate on the definition of miracle.

Myzozoa quotes an unfinished sentence that ends with talk about RNA which is the basis of my replies. -> says I fixate on abiogenesis.

I get quoted saying "scientists believe [that RNA is the origin of life]", reply with 3 bolded words for emphasis on my counter argument and add the word "please" at the end as a gesture to not refute what scientists believe. -> calls me snarky.

You have made no attempt to salvage a discussion or to dispel any confusion, instead proceeds to ridicule me -> only calls himself "dismissive", yet I am condescending, snarky, and emotionally attached.

Nice. Can't argue with that logic. A+

Here's an FYI for you. Near my local high school there was a debate among parents over what is taught in biology as fact. So maybe this topic is important to me and I wanted to discuss it in the context of the strength of a persons faith. Or is that we can only talk about what you allow in this thread?

And finally. I have no interest in talking about creation in particular, no interest in talking about death in particular. I didn't dedicate my original post to any particular topic on purpose. I mentioned a lot of concepts that are important to faith and commented on how the scientific community diverges and in some cases that I mentioned have discovered different answers. The people that don't believe in genesis is exactly to who my post was directed to. I wanted to know if a false description lowers their faith, strengthens their faith, or has no impact on their faith. But unfortunately you reminded me why I left this site in the first place. Can't have pokemon and mature discussion without personal nitpicking in one forum.
 
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TheValkyries

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Why would you be asking questions aimed at religious people in a thread dedicated to be a space for people who are not religious?

Good God, this thread sucks.
 

TheValkyries

proudly reppin' 2 superbowl wins since DEFLATEGATE
Asking like-minded people for what an opposing viewpoint would say about your position is the definition of searching for a circle-jerk.

But yeah man. Do you, I guess.
 
What are you talking about? Miracle do contradict scientific knowledge when physical laws have been well establish and supported that its essentially impossible for said miracle to occur. Supernatural or not. Many scientists believe in the RNA world which is not even remotely similar to the creation of the human species as depicted in the bible.
lol we keep coming back to this topic

The fundamental problem with the supernatural / miracles isn't that they contradict physics. The problem is that the very concept of the supernatural is beyond any practical inquiry. "Supernatural" is a non-explanation masquerading as information, with no consequences in itself. This can be readily seen in how supernatural explanations are usually "debunked". Many events claimed to have supernatural origin (especially in the present) don't actually contradict what might be scientifically expected, and ironically that's precisely the issue with them (the supernatural explanation becomes redundant as well as unhelpful). In other cases, we question whether the event even occurred as claimed, and it turns out that there are problems with the assumption that it did (this is how attacks on holy texts work).

I agree that the notion of "supernatural" is generally harmful because the passing off of empty rhetoric as knowledge relevant to one's life opens people's minds up to abuses of language resulting in belief in literally false claims. I agree that certain specific supernatural claims are harmful because people often literally believe them and don't investigate them for various reasons, and what you don't know can hurt you. I disagree that the notion of "supernatural" in itself can be said to contradict or not contradict physics in a meaningful way (for example, the universe could have been created last Tuesday in a fashion undetectable to us), and in fact I find this line of reasoning counterproductive.
I think you're confusing attributes that apply to cells with attributes that apply to sets of cells (e.g. humans).

A square has certain attributes such as "area" and "side length". A collection of squares has attributes that a square cannot possess, such as "number of squares". The property "number of squares" of course did not come out of nowhere; it is dependent on the collective properties of the squares that make up the collection, particularly the fact that they exist and so we can count them. Similarly, words are collections of sounds and can have properties that the component sounds don't have. However, the understanding of a word is not something that appears out of nowhere, but is dependent on the properties of the component sounds. Humans, too, "feel emotions, remember information and work with them, and believe" and the fact that components making up humans don't do these things doesn't make these properties unmeasurable or unexplainable.

The only thing actually preventing us from accurately reducing each other to the sum of our component parts is our sheer complexity. Thanks to results in chaos theory, we can only predict the dynamics of a complex system for so long for a given level of detail. This means that we can only reasonably predict the weather of a locale (a very high level of detail) about two weeks ahead, while the climate dynamics of a large region or even the whole planet (a low level of detail) can be predicted pretty precisely decades ahead. In the same way, it's hard to understand an individual to an amount of detail that we'd normally consider friend/family level, but when it comes to general behaviours of groups, we have a lot of that down to a science, and put it to practical use.
 
The problem is that the very concept of the supernatural is beyond any practical inquiry.
Thank you for your meaningful post. I was just about to quit this site for this year, but decided to pop in for one last laugh at what the last couple of posters have been putting out.

Anyway I quoted this sentence because it's similar to what Myzozoa decided to rant about, which I made clear I wasn't interested in talking about. So lets break this up into smaller pieces to analyze. First, I never said or implied that science can disprove the supernatural. I never said miracles contradict physics, i said physical laws (see where you quoted me). This is very different because physics is the study of nature and I completely agree with you that "The problem is that the very concept of the supernatural is beyond any practical inquiry." To simply put it: you can't study the supernatural, so you can't make any conclusive decisions. I have never tried to demonstrate anything otherwise. However, I said physical laws which is a principle deduced from particular facts. I think we can agree that whether the supernatural exists or not, empirical evidence is constant otherwise any meaningful discussion shoots off into a bottomless trap of metaphysics like "what is reality?".

Everybody so far and presumably before are already assuming that the question is "If creation is true, explain supernatural force A". However that is not what I have been arguing and so far nobody has really addressed this when replying to me. Descent with modification is a fact. The logical deduction is that following the cladogram (tree of life) leads to a single celled common ancestor (LUCA). In academia this fact is on the same league as the fact of the chemistry between battery acid reacting with mucous membranes. So unless anybody is willing to dump battery acid on their eyes to show their doubt in science we will keep LUCA a fact. Up until now we have made no assumptions contrary to what Myzozoa ignorantly declared, all we have been doing is collected data, compared physiology, genome structures, ribosome compositions, etc. and our evidence put together a chart with a pattern that lead us to the origin of life. Now the bible says that woman was created form man's rib. This is different. This is a contradiction of physical laws. I mentioned RNA in my original topic, but that was just for shock value in the contrast, the main idea is the same.

I don't know if you can understand that this is not a case of debunking the supernatural because there is no need. The supernatural, whatever it is, did something and lead to a physical, observable event: The creation of a human as a fully cooperative multicellular organism. As I told myzozoa I'm here to talk about the science, not metaphysical topics, so the idea of the supernatural in general is of no interest to me. Only this particular event which is an important part in most people's faith.

Now because our knowledge of our unicellular ancestor was a result of rational reasoning like every discovery in science. We have 2 choice to make when confronted with a claim of the supernatural as in this case. We can accept this supernatural claim or at least say it could be likely and admit that every prediction, every foreseeable action due to science has been a coincidence (in other words every physical law that we use in our everyday life has been wrong or the fact that anything works is a coincidence). Or this supernatural claim is wrong.

And of course to link all of this together I said:
But what about the physical accounts of God such as creation? There's no metaphor there: God gave life, set forth the universe and what not. I think most people (including me) are interested in debating the truth in those statements.
In the context of the existence of God I was curious how the faith of theists that accept evolution and everything else compares to those that don't. Of course I didn't say "only Christians that believe in evolution can reply" because I welcomed all responses and opinions and I find the fact that I needed to explain that appalling.

Anyway I'm generally displeased with the quality of responses in this thread so I wont log back on to reply back to you, but thanks for that.
 
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